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New Scientist Live

The happiness equation – the making of a satisfied scientist

By Catherine de Lange and Alaina G. Levine

Having a sunny disposition is as beneficial to your health, in terms of the number of years you clock up, as not smoking. Since so much of your life is spent working, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that being happy in your job is pretty important. New Scientist digs deep into the science of happiness to show you how to become a more satisfied, and ultimately more successful, scientist.

In search of the green

CYNDI LAUPER sang that it changes everything. Liza Minelli belted out that it makes the world go round. And John and Paul swore you can’t use it to buy love. But can it buy you happiness? One thing is for certain&colon; “The pursuit of money, be it salary or grants, is a driver for all of us,” says Phillip Clifford, associate dean of biomedical sciences at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Ivan Perez-Neri, a neurochemistry PhD candidate at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, agrees&colon; “Even if you love your research, income is necessary to make your dreams come true, in both your personal life and your career.”

Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton of Princeton University found that day-to-day happiness levels plateau when you reach an annual salary of &dollar;75,000 – a figure that scientists don’t usually reach until they have worked for 16 years or more, according to Nature‘s 2010 salary survey. After you reach that amount, your overall life satisfaction may continue to rise but your day-to-day emotional happiness won’t.

So can we lose our way in our desire for more dough? Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, thinks so. “As happiness researchers, we say more money won’t make you happier, but as scientists, we often don’t heed our own advice,” he says. “We need grants to support our research and often believe that getting a big grant is going to pay off with a big happiness boost. But this may not produce the benefits we hope for.”

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One easy way to improve your happiness is to stop comparing your pay packet with those of others. You may feel a little bit happier if you discover that others make less than you, but economist Erzo Luttmer at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found that the reverse is also true&colon; even an academic scientist is not above feeling down in the dumps when they find out that their colleagues’ salaries surpass their own. The best solution? Focus on your own career and not your neighbour’s.

Some psychologists argue that money is more connected to stress than happiness. “Solving money problems doesn’t necessarily make people happier, but it does relieve stress,” says Stuart Sidle, a psychologist at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. For scientists in particular, “money doesn’t tend to excite them to get out of bed, but a lack of it does keep them up at night”. Sidle equates the yearning for more money to a toothache. Once you get more, “a pain is removed but if you are not fulfilled in other parts of your life, then you will find new problems”.

“A desire for more money is like a toothache. Once you get more, the pain goes away but it is not enough to make you happy”

Love in the lab

HAVE you ever found your attention wandering from what’s in your Petri dish to what your colleague looks like underneath their lab coat? If so, you are in good company. Lust over the lab bench goes back a long way&colon; at the turn of the 20th century, Pierre Curie married fellow scientist Marie and even shared a Nobel prize with her. Today the trend continues with about 70 per cent of physicists married to other scientists, and more than 60 per cent of women with PhDs in science married to men with PhDs in science. Most of the research looks at marriage, but these trends should also apply to those in partnerships.

So why do so many scientists end up together? According to Brianna Blaser from the University of Washington, who interviewed female scientists in relationships with other scientists, most of them got together because their job was so all-encompassing – most of their acquaintances were scientists too.

Whether or not you shack up with a fellow scientist, the evidence seems to suggest that getting hitched should give you a lift. Last year David Gallacher at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, UK, led a review of over 150 studies into the happiness of relationships, and found that married couples are happier and healthier than singletons. When it comes to scientists coupling up there can be both positives and negatives. “It’s good because you get encouragement and push each other,” says engineer Constance Chakanyuka, who used to work for the same firm as her engineer spouse. “But it is frustrating as well – I compare myself with him. We started in the same grade of job and now he’s in a management position. He has progressed but I have had to play catch-up,” she says, because of the extra time she spent raising their children.

“You can encourage and push each other but it can be frustrating. My husband and I started at the same level but now he’s ahead because I looked after the children”

Blaser’s study highlighted that one of the biggest hurdles for scientist couples was “the two-body problem” – trying to find jobs together. Several couples reported that when universities did find them jobs together, they were offered a lower salary than for two individual scientists. According to Rachel Tobbell from the UK Resource Centre for women in science, engineering and technology, some universities can be accommodating. “If they are trying to buy in the best people in their field, they know they are bringing in a whole family,” she says.

Because women’s careers still generally take a backseat if there are childcare duties involved, it is often the women who have to follow the men in their career. This can be especially hard in the UK because “we don’t really like people being in positions because of who they know”, Tobbell says. In the US, it seems to be more accepted that dual-career couples offer institutions an opportunity to increase diversity, and a 2008 report by the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University revealed that the hiring of couples in the US has increased from 3 per cent in the 1970s to 13 per cent since 2000.

Because this is such a thorny issue, it is important to tread carefully. While it won’t endear you to an interview panel if you demand your spouse work in the same lab as you, there’s nothing wrong with enquiring whether there are any openings that would suit your partner, and putting them forward.

An increasing number of institutions are setting up dual-careers offices to deal with the situation, so find out what their policy is before you broach the subject with a potential employer. The best time to mention it is when you have been offered the position, as you will have the most negotiating power. But remember, don’t bluff. Unless it really is a deal-breaker, don’t pretend it is or you might both end up without a job.

Little bundles of joy

Things I think while in #labor&colon; If I go get my epidural now, I can finish this manuscript revision #importantthingstopack.

So tweeted so-called Dr Isis, a female research scientist and blogger in October last year, just a few hours before her baby was born. Her Twitter post might sound extreme, but speak to any career scientist who is also a parent and you’ll find the workload involved in trying to juggle a family and a science career can be overwhelming. In fact, “there is no data to back up the phrase ‘little bundles of joy'”, says psychologist Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University, and this goes for anyone, not just scientists. That said, when asked what makes them happy, most people with children will point to their offspring.

If you do decide to have kids, acquiring a level of flexibility at work to achieve a decent work-life balance could be crucial both to your own happiness and to your productivity at work. “If people are allowed to work flexibly, the science says they are more productive, happier and will be more committed,” says Cary Cooper, a professor of organisational health at Lancaster University, UK.

However, there is still a feeling that science is not a job which lends itself to flexibility. “I often meet people who think you can’t do research part-time,” says Pia Ostergaard, a geneticist at St George’s Medical School in London who took three years out from science to have a family, and then returned to work part-time. This is still a rarity, says Ostergaard, who is one of only three female researchers in the university working part-time. One of the reasons is the competitive nature of science. “There might be people elsewhere working full-time on a similar subject who can get the results and analyse them faster,” she says.

There are ways to overcome these hurdles, though. First of all, a supportive manager is key to maintaining a good work-life balance. There are also fellowships available to support scientists who have taken a career break, for example to raise a family. Neuroscientist Holly Bridge at the University of Oxford had her child early on in her career and went back to work with the help of a Dorothy Hodgkin fellowship from London’s Royal Society, which is designed for scientists who need to work flexibly due to personal circumstances. “I took six months off after the baby was born and then worked two days a week for six months,” she says. Because her career was relatively young, Bridge didn’t have a team relying on her, which made it easier to work flexibly.

Others argue that it is best to wait until you are more established, but Ostergaard disagrees. She had a child just after her PhD and went back to work with the help of a fellowship from the Daphne Jackson Trust. She certainly doesn’t think it would have helped her career to wait&colon; “I might not have had any children at all,” she says. Recent research by Elaine Howard Ecklund from Rice University in Houston, Texas, backs this up. Eckland asked over 2500 scientists at different stages of their careers about their satisfaction both with their work and their life outside work. She found that 45 per cent of women and 25 per cent of men had fewer children than they wanted because they had pursued a career in science. This was found to have a negative impact on their life satisfaction. Having fewer children than desired can even drive people out of science, Eckland claims.

And if you are allowed to work flexibly? Use the time wisely, says Robert Huddart, an oncologist at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, who has raised three children. “I think it’s about organisation, and having some separation so that when you are at home you actually spend the time with your family,” he says. “Having a degree of flexibility is a boon but it’s important to know when to switch off.”

Burning ambition

YOU need some fire in your belly to make it to the top in science. But could too much drive end up driving you round the bend? Or worse, will the stress of over-ambition send you to an early grave? Not according to economists Andrew Oswald and Matthew Rablen, from the University of Warwick, UK, who looked at over 500 men up for a physics or chemistry Nobel prize and found that those who won lived on average two years longer than those who were (unbeknownst to them) merely nominated. The finding led the duo to conclude that a high social status grants you a longer life.

Extreme scientific success might give you a couple of extra years, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be happy days. In order to find happiness in your work life, it is important to make sure your goals are achievable in the long term. If those goals are unrealistic, they are likely to become a source of frustration and unhappiness. “If we always compare ourselves with the people who are publishing in the top journals then it can lead to low self-esteem,” says Brendan Burchell, a sociologist at the University of Cambridge. So seek inspiration from Nobel prize-winners, “but don’t kid yourself that’s the norm and that if you don’t achieve that, you’re a failure”.

Cary Cooper, a professor of organisational health at Lancaster University, agrees that people who are overly driven are never going to be happy. “Type A personalities are impatient, rushed, ambitious and aggressive,” he says. In other words, they are workaholics. “Real workaholics are never really content because once they achieve one goal, they move on to the next. And when they fail, the failure is much more profound.” This is especially relevant to scientists because, more than in most professions, you are never going to have all the answers – there’s always something else out there that you could be working on, it’s just the nature of the beast.

“Real workaholics are never content because as soon as they achieve one goal, they move on to the next”

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being driven if you balance hard work with time off focusing on other things. But remember, pushing yourself too hard can be counter-productive. “Continual time pressure – that sense of never having enough time to do things as well as you’d like – is a major stressor,” says Burchell.

The space you work in

WHETHER you have a boss who screams and micromanages, or an absentee principal investigator who skips town all too often, the atmosphere in which you work affects your well-being. “If your boss gives you freedom, you develop the competence to do science,” says Chuck Mobley, a structural biochemistry postdoc at the University of Georgia in Athens. “I came from a place where I was overly managed to one where I am encouraged to explore on my own and search out the people to answer my questions when I need assistance.” He reckons the autonomy helped him become a better scientist.

The feel of the space you work in is also a factor. Most universities still aren’t known for designing their departments around their occupants. Hands up, who has worked in a windowless basement at some point in their academic career? “Libraries seem to attract some innovative design thinking, but professors’ offices certainly do not,” says Jacqueline Vischer, director of the faculty of environmental design at the University of Montreal, Canada. “Universities on both sides of the Atlantic typically provide functional space where people can do what they have to but do not add anything to the experience.”

This is changing, however. Staff in the health and social care department at Bournemouth University, UK, have implemented a programme designed to promote well-being by making changes to their workspace. They fashioned a series of rooms furnished with sustainable materials, plants, natural light and colours to be used by academics and students as a meeting place. They also created a model in which each principal investigator is referred to as a “leader” rather than “manager”, and where the departments are organised as “academic communities”. “We created a space for people to socialise across academic disciplines,” says Ann Hemingway, a public health researcher at Bournemouth. “Without this nurturing environment, people can’t build relationships and this means the organisation doesn’t function well.”

When Vischer and her team investigated the use of the lab spaces at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology several years ago, they came to similar conclusions. “It is important to have informal places to meet so that ideas get exchanged – even if this means queuing up for the same piece of equipment so that you meet people in line.” Vischer also recommends designing labs so that they are on “circulation paths”, so people are not just in contact with their direct colleagues but also people from other labs, making them feel connected to what else is going on in the building.

While it’s unlikely that you are going to be able to change the design of your faculty, you can enhance your psychological comfort. “People should think about their territory – not in order to defend it but in order to feel some comfort in ownership of it,” says Vischer. For example, this could be personalising it through decoration or bringing in a soft chair, small carpet or lamp from home, she says.

Streeeesssssed?!*&^%

“VERY few people, especially in academia, live a stress-free existence,” says Rebecca Shansky, a psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston. This may seem like a no-brainer but if you are pulling your hair out with stress, take note&colon; it may be transforming your brain. Shansky should know – she has spent the last decade analysing how stress affects rat brains.

Shansky has found that prolonged stress causes the connection between neurons in the prefrontal cortex to change length. In humans, “the prefrontal cortex governs higher cognitive functions like concentration and organisation”, she explains, “and stress-related structural changes could lead to impairments in these functions.” What’s more, as we endure more stress, brain regions that control emotion will begin to guide behaviour over those that govern reason.

Then again, stress can push us to excel, and so actually increase our happiness, says Phillip Clifford of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Some people, including many scientists, enjoy intense environments where they are challenged with exciting problems that are difficult but not impossible to solve, says Stuart Sidle at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. Mental pressures can “energise our performance”, he says, but there is always a limit to what we can take before we break. “We like to be aroused, but not to the point where we are going to throw up [from the stress].”

If you enjoy pushing yourself to the extreme, by taking on huge workloads, for example, it is important to recognise that stress will ultimately get the better of you, says Clifford. “If it continues day-in, day-out, for years, it doesn’t produce positive adaptations.”

The remedy to stress is simple. “To stay sane, take a step back,” advises Shansky. A break is important not just for our psychological health but for our physical health as well. According to her animal studies, if you can have a period of rest and recovery after periods of stress, the neuroanatomical changes will reverse.

“Being ‘on’ all the time is not helpful for anyone, certainly not for scientists, for whom creativity is so important,” says Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches psychology at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. “We need to recharge our psychological batteries.” Use downtime to “consciously take stock of what’s in your life besides your career”, says Clifford. “Our life is a puzzle and our career is only one piece of it.”

The Super Couple

Anna Amtmann and Pawell Herzyk, senior lecturers at the University of Glasgow

Most postdocs have enough to worry about with the insecurity that comes with the start of a career in science, but when Anna Amtmann and her partner Pawell Herzyk found out they were having twins, they knew they were in for a challenge. “For the twin’s first five years we were postdocs,” Anna says. On the plus side, having twins meant just one lot of maternity leave, but when Anna talks about these early years of raising twins on two postdoc salaries, it was clearly a scary time. There was also a feeling that they were very much in it together, both being at the same stage of their career. “It was an adventure. We didn’t argue about who would be at home with the children, we argued about who would be allowed back to the lab,” she says. “Sometimes I fed the babies in the evening and then went back in the middle of the night to change the cell cultures.”

Although the couple shared the childcare, they needed help when Anna went back to work full time after just a few months. “At some stages it looked like I wouldn’t succeed and I thought ‘I’ve done everything wrong now. I didn’t have fun with my babies, I still don’t have a career’,” Anna says, “so it is a risk.” But looking back, she says, it was “big fun” – as long as you know that this is really what you want.

Is There an Upside to Feeling Down?

Being happy in and outside of work makes us more productive, but is there ever a time when too much happiness is a bad thing? “There are case studies that seem to show that paradox,” says sociologist Brendan Burchell of the University of Cambridge. For instance, Joe Forgas at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, found that after giving students positive feedback, they tended to behave more selfishly than those who had received bad feedback. Being grumpy, it seems, might turn people into better team players.

In another study, Forgas found that people who were in a bad mood were more attentive and made fewer mistakes in cognitive tasks. He also found that negative people were more sceptical and less gullible than their upbeat peers, suggesting there is an upside to feeling down after all.

What about the idea that happy people might get complacent if they feel too content at work? According to Cary Cooper, professor of organisational health at Lancaster University, that’s unlikely to happen, because those who enjoy their working environment won’t want to let their colleagues down. He certainly isn’t convinced that misery is the way forward in the workplace&colon; “Does too much contentment mean people don’t push themselves? If that’s the case, we haven’t got there yet.”